1599. But this the only publication it is believed concerning the above lady at present known, is certainly no ballad. REMARKS.

Iulian of Brainford's testament, is mentioned by Laneham in his letter from Killingworth Castle, 1575, amongst many other works of established notoHENLEY.

riety.

255.

So, in K. Lear, Edgar says,

-] Dauberies are disguises.

-such daubery

"I cannot daub it further."

264.

STEEVENS.

—ronyon!—] Ronyon, applied to a wo

man, means, as far as can be traced, much the same with scall or scab spoken of a man.

So, in Macbeth,

JOHNSON.

"Aroint thee witch, the rump-fed ronyon cries.” From Regneux, Fr. So, again: "The roynish clown," in As You Like it.

272.

STEEVENS.

-a great peard;] One of the marks of a

supposed witch was a beard.

So, in the Duke's Mistress, 1638:

-a chin, without all controversy, good "To go a fishing with a witches beard on't." STEEVENS.

273.- -I spy a great peard under her muffler,] As the second stratagem, by which Falstaff escapes is much the grosser of the two, I wish it had been practised first. It is very unlikely that Ford, having been so deceived before, and knowing that he had been deceived, would suffer him to escape in so slight a disguise.

276. -cry out thus upon no trail

I j

JOHNSON. -,] The ex

pression

pression is taken from the hunters.

left by the passage of the game. open or bark.

So, in Hamlet,

Trail is the scent

To cry out, is to
JOHNSON.

"How chearfully on the false trail they cry:
"Oh this is counter, ye false Danish dogs!"

STEEVENS.

291. -in the way of waste, attempt us again.]i. e. he will not make further attempts to ruin us, by corrupting our virtue, and destroying our reputation. STEEVENS.

300.

-no period-] Shakspere seems, by no pe riod, to mean, no proper catastrophe. Of this Hanmer was so well persuaded, that he thinks it nesessary to read-no right period.

STEEVENS.

314. they must come off; -] To come off, is to pay. In this sense it is used by Massinger, 'in The Unnatural Combat, act IV. sc. ii. where a wench, demanding money of the father to keep his bastard, says, "Will you come off, sir?" Again, in Decker's If this be not a good Play the Devil is in it, 1612: "Do not your gallants come off roundly then ?” STEEVENS.

321. I rather will suspect the sun with cold,] Thus the modern editions. The old ones read-with gold, which may mean, I rather will suspect the sun can be a thief, or be corrupted by a bribe, than thy honour can be betrayed to wantonness. Mr. Rowe silently made the change, which succeeding editors have as silently adopted. A thought of a similar kind occurs in Hen. IV. Part I.

"Shall

"Shall the blessed sun of heaven prove a micher?" I have not, however, displaced Mr. Rowe's emendation; as a zeal to preserve old readings without distinction, may sometimes prove as injurious to the author's reputation, as a desire to introduce new ones, without attention to the quaintness of phraseology then in use. STEEVENS.

The examples here adduced by Mr. Steevens are, I fear, scarcely in point; for in every one of them the To rather coalesces with ALL, than with the respective verb which follows it. An instance more to his purpose occurs in Comus, v. 366.

"I do not think my sister so to-seek,

"Or so unprincipled in virtue's book—”

At the same time it may be remarked that all-to, in the sense of altogether (which Mr. Warton has judiciously restored) is used in the same context,

"She plumes her feathers, and lets grow her wings,

"That in the various bustle of resort

"Were all-to ruffled"

In North's Plutarch is a passage which will confirm the observation above:- "" setting forth our cittie, like a glorious woman, all to be gawded [all-to begauded] with gold and precious stones." E. 174. Perhaps the line in K. John, should be thus printed: "Is all-to wanton, and too full of gauds

347.

HENLEY.

-and takes the cattle;] To take, in Shak

spere, signifies to seize or strike with a disease, to

blast.

66

So, in Lear:

-Strike her young bones,

"Ye taking airs, with lameness."

JOHNSON.

So, in Markham's Treatise of Horses, 1595, chap. 8. "Of a horse that is taken. A horse that is bereft of his feeling, mooving or styrring, is said to be taken, and in sooth so hee is, in that he is arrested by so villainous a disease, yet some farriors, not well understanding the ground of the disease, conster the word taken, to be striken by some planet or evil-spirit, which is false," &c. Thus our poet:

351.

-No planets strike, no fairy takes."

TOLLET.

-idle-headed eld] Eld seems to be used

here, for what our poets call in Macbeth-the olden time. It is employed in Measure for Measure, to express age and decrepitude,

"doth beg the alms

"Of palsied eld."

STEEVENS.

360. Disguis'd like Herne, with huge horns on his head.] This line, which is not in the folio, was restored from the old quarto by Mr. Theobald. He at the same time introduced another from the same copy -“ We'll send him word to meet us in the field”. which is clearly unnecessary, and indeed improper; for the word field relates to two preceding lines of the quarto, which have not been introduced:

"Now, for that Falstaff has been so deceiv'd,

"As

"As that he dares not meet us in the house,
"We'll send him word to meet us in the field."

MALONE. The primitive

367. urchins, ouphes,] signification of urchin is a hedge-hog. In this sense it is used in the Tempest. Hence it comes to signify any thing little and dwarfish. Ouph is the Teutonick word for a fairy or goblin. STEEVENS.

372. With some diffused song:- -] A diffused song signifies a song that strikes out into wild sentiments beyond the bounds of nature, such as those whose subject is fairy land. WARBURTON.

Diffused may mean confused. So in Stowe's Chronicle, p. 553. 'Rice, quoth he, (i. e. Cardinal Wolsey,) speak you Welch to them: I doubt not but thy speech shall be more diffuse to him, than his French shall be to thee." TOLLET. By diffused song, Shakspere may mean such irregular songs as mad people sing. Kent, in K. Lear, when he has determined to assume the appearance of a travelling lunatick, declares his resolution to diffuse his speech, i. e. to give it the turn peculiar to madness. STIEVENS.

375. And, fairy-like, To pinch the unclean knight;] The grammar requires us to read:

"And, fairy-like TOO, pinch the unclean knight." WARBURTON.

This should perhaps be written to-pinch, as one word. This use of to, in composition with verbs, is very common in Gower and Chaucer, but must have been rather